Some of you may have noticed it has been an awfully long time since anything came to pass on my rather large Evangelion webcomic "EVA-303".

Following the back to back releases of chapters 7 and 8, I made it clear that I was drained physically and needed a break.

But as the Olympics came and went, the break became a creative paralysis. Radio controlled airplanes became the hobby of choice.

The longer time went by, I began to dread, even hate Evangelion and Asuka. It seemed that the 2 year well of energy and imagination was finally running dry.

In the last few days I have had at least a recognition in my mind that energy must be found and creative hurdles overcome. Technically, there may be ways to make the comic more manageable and easier to produce and I need to explore those. There may be more detailed backgrounds but less computer greyscale shading in the future.

So we'll see how it goes. I still wonder how much enthusiasm I can drum up when Asuka herself is nowhere in the chapter (such an Asuka stalker, aren't I?), but there's plenty to talk about between Rei, Kaworu and Saburo as well as Shinji's agonizing loneliness.

The problem is that enthusiasm for drawing is one thing. Actually being able to write the scenes is something else! I need to have a wave of creativity on the WRITING side, and the artistic side will take care of itself.

I guess all I can say is good luck, and that I wish I could give you a bit of my enthusiasm, since it has never wavered, even after these several months.

If you don't mind a piece of advice, here it is; and if you do, then please ignore it. It is probably not my business to offer you advice, since you have accomplished more in such things than me, but I feel compelled to do so. I would say that if your plan is to wait for a wave of creativity, you will want to reevaluate your plan. Waves of creativity are nice, but are not something to depend on; in my experience people who do, whether it is me or someone else, end up not producing much at all. There comes a point when you have to just sit down and force yourself to work. On the other hand, you also have to like what you do, at least on some level. I guess the distinction is if you still feel enthusiasm for the thing itself, if not the process, then just make yourself do it. But if you have lost your hunger for the thing itself... well then, you're pretty well shanked.

On a more technical level, would it be so bad to just skip over Asuka's time in a coma, and just have people fill her in with brief flashbacks after she wakes up? She is certainly your favorite character, and her relationship with Shinji is the heart of the story; and so having the story go on without her is like having only half the story (arguably the less interesting half, though your Shinji is an improvement). I think I can understand why you wanted to get her off the stage for a while, but sometimes the main character needs to be on the stage the whole time; Hamlet really doesn't get much of a break as I recall.

If however you are certain that work cannot proceed, or that you need to write the period where she is in a coma, but cannot muster the will or energy to do so right now, go and read Chuckman's work over on FFnet. I think you'll like it, if you've not read it already.

Again, pardon the unsolicited advice, if you didn't want it. Once more, good luck. Eva 303 is an excellent piece of work, and I look forward to reading more of it.

Oh no no no! I welcome the advice! Part of my point in this journal was to get ideas. I still feel nothing good comes from 'forcing' yourself to write or create, but perhaps it's a good time to put on some good old NGE and see what I'm thinking about the next day

Oh yeah, and it goes without saying, but take as long as you need to do this. Obviously I'd like to read it yesterday, but I've come to understand that sometimes it just takes a long time to do something, and there's no sense bitching about it and trying to rush it. I'm a fan of the Ice and Fire books by George R.R. Martin, and I noticed that the latter half of it especially was... not exactly bad, since the plot was great, and the characters were great, but it wasn't as tight as the other books, or even the first half. The conclusion I came to was that Martin's editor had fallen down on the job, that they had been in such a rush to get the manuscript out the door to the printers (because it was already three or four years behind schedule at that point), that they didn't do a very thorough edit job. The result were a number of sentences that didn't quite make sense, incorrect constructions, incorrect word usage (speculation is the editor actually replaced some words, and replaced them incorrectly).

So yeah, quality over speed every time, at least when it comes to fiction. You're not writing a serial. Well, okay, I guess you are writing a serial, but you're not writing a serial where the publisher is going to hound you for his pages every month.

I'm glad of that! Well, I somewhat agree that nothing much good comes from forcing yourself to write something, particularly if your heart really isn't in it. It's a rare writer who can do that, and still produce something good. Putting on some NGE and seeing what happens sounds like a good idea.

Also, one last technical point: I actually really like the shading on Eva 303 as it has been done up to now, though I understand why you want to switch, since shading is one of the more tedious and time consuming parts of drawing. The fact that you'll have more detailed backgrounds is promising, but just from the link you put up as an example, it makes me think that the new chapters will have large stretches of white space, which seems to me kind of a step down. Though of course it goes without saying that Eva 303 won't look like whatever it was you linked, so perhaps all this is just the rambling of someone resistant to change.

Good luck! Definitely, go back and watch some classic Eva, maybe read some fanfiction if that's your thing, and see what ideas come up.

If you do want to focus on Asuka, maybe you should look back at your original plans for the next chapter, which if I recall, was you focusing on Shinji reminiscing about the times he and Asuka, well, got it on. From a primary standpoint, it would've looked like you just would draw them doing it, but you can still bring in the emotional factor by tying in Shinji's lonliness.

Just... don't have him fap on her unconscious body like the pros actually made him. That was a REALLY bad idea.

Haha! No I got 'revenge' for the fap scene by having Asuka shlick in the shower in chapter 5. We're covered on that end.

As for the 'hentai' chapter, I just gave up. At least for now. It's amazing. I'm as perverted as they come, but I just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm to finish that. As if it was just taking me away from the core story.